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Sunday, 13 November 2011

Illamasqua Lipstick in Kontrol

This was one of my purchases when I visited the Illamasqua flagship London store on Beak Street (Soho) for the first time this weekend. I don’t actually buy lipstick that often so if I’m going to buy a colour that’s not a nude I’m willing to spend a bit more to buy something a bit special. I paid £15.50 for this which is the current full RRP in the UK. Kontrol is a lovely deep, blue-grey purple in a creamy, semi-matte finish. It’s part of the current season Illamasqua collection Theatre of the Nameless which you can currently see the promo pics for at the Illamasqua website.

The shape of the lipstick bullet is quite flat and angled at the top so if you’re better at lipstick than me you might be able to apply this straight from the bullet. I managed to create a better shape with a brush though. I used a slanted eyeliner brush as the angled shape makes it easy to create a defined cupid’s bow and straight edges to the lips.

The consistency is lovely and very creamy, so it’s not at all drying to wear. The finish is also creamy rather than matte or glossy, but you could either pat a matte purple eyeshadow on top to mattify or add lipgloss or a shimmery eyeshadow on top to create a shiny effect if you felt like a different finish.

I wore this lipstick yesterday and today and it lasted around 5 hours on me which I was quite pleased with. To be honest, even when it faded it created quite an interesting effect as my natural lip colour began to show through in the centre of my lips but the edges remained purple.

The colour is a little bit unforgiving on my skin tone as, being quite blue, it brings out yellow tones so it makes my teeth and skin look more yellow. However I just offset this by not showing my teeth too much and whacking on plenty of rosy blush (my current favourite is Accessorize baked blush in Scandal). I also love the way that a slick of this lipstick and a spot of blush are enough to create a really polished, finished look – perfect 5-minute weekend make-up for autumn & winter.

2 comments:

Thank you! I don't wear this lipstick as much as I should as I do really like it. I think it would look good on NC tones, it makes me look a bit yellow (!) so I always wear it with plenty of blusher :)